I don't use your dictionary. reactionary is not a synonym for ultraconservative
‘My dictionary’ is a turn of phrase. I use the universal ones:
Thesaurus
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/reactionary
Similar in Oxford, Webster etc.
Blaming green policy for pauperisation of the population unfairly links the green agenda to the cause of that poverty.
One could ask who’s green agenda? From my perspective, he refers to the current government's NetZero policy, which is a greenwash balm. A neoliberal answer to climate disaster, to make us believe that they are doing something. I know, I have worked for a spell in the green industry on NetZero and such.
Neoliberals are using their green policies to continue with the same trajectory of impoverishing their populations.
Thatcher outsourced our industry using an oil windfall - exactly the opposite of green industry.
Was Thatcher a neoliberal? Just saying, irrespective of the fact whether she used North Sea oil or not as one of her tools.
Green industry: the current investment in wind and solar energy? – it relies on fossil fuels to get there. Thermodynamic metric of EROI and all that. Sure, one can manage it and minimise the use of fossil fuels somewhat (managed contraction as you say in your next para).
This type of writing makes it harder not easier to engage the population with necessary changes which include managed contraction and convergence.
As I said in my earlier post:
I don’t disagree that solidarity is a mitigation per se, but for that one needs to have a clear picture of where one is going. He provides that.
Furthermore, we need to get into a revolutionary spirit and upend this vile neoliberal consensus which has gripped the west. Business as usual ain’t gonna crack it.
He does suggest technological alternatives - nuclear and climate engineering
This is in passing, and as I commented:
Don’t think he claims to provide solutions except when he is musing.
He is right about nuclear from the perspective of the S curve of energy exploitation (again EROI). Not that I want to do a Monbiot myself, as a life-long anti-nuker. Not unless we can get thorium reactors to work (this reported in Nature in 2021 and now the latest from 2023):
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/thorium-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor-china
Watkins has a good analogy of what is happening, using lifeboats:
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2016/05/02/no-easy-answers-2/
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